One of Aristotle’s essential views on Nature is his idea of the four major “causes.” These four is causes are material cause, formal cause, the moving cause, and final cause. Matter, is the physical composition of the object: the components it is created out of. Form is the way in which these parts are put together which includes the properties of the object and the functions that arise from it. The moving cause is the thing which about an event or an action, and the final cause is the reason for an event. This can be either a purpose for doing something or it can be the scientific, physical reasoning for why something occurred. For example, the final cause of someone walking may be to become more healthy. Additionally, one final cause for a table may be to eat food on it.
To Aristotle, formal cause (form) and material cause (matter) are two distinct causes of an object. The material cause, is the components out of which the object is made out of. For example, this may be the wood in a table or the parts of a house. The matter of an object has no bearing on how the components are put …show more content…
This means that, under Empedocle’s theory, the reason dogs don’t have wings is that dogs did not need wings to be able to survive in the environments in which they exist. In some ways, it looks like Aristotle became too convinced of his theory of causes and began to over-apply it to nature. Although it is true that the parts of many living things do have some purpose, a final cause, it is difficult to link that purpose to its existence without some ‘go-between” such as evolution or creationism. While studying the purpose of a part or process is important, suggesting that the part exists only because of the purpose it serves provides the scientist with an incomplete
To Aristotle, formal cause (form) and material cause (matter) are two distinct causes of an object. The material cause, is the components out of which the object is made out of. For example, this may be the wood in a table or the parts of a house. The matter of an object has no bearing on how the components are put …show more content…
This means that, under Empedocle’s theory, the reason dogs don’t have wings is that dogs did not need wings to be able to survive in the environments in which they exist. In some ways, it looks like Aristotle became too convinced of his theory of causes and began to over-apply it to nature. Although it is true that the parts of many living things do have some purpose, a final cause, it is difficult to link that purpose to its existence without some ‘go-between” such as evolution or creationism. While studying the purpose of a part or process is important, suggesting that the part exists only because of the purpose it serves provides the scientist with an incomplete